Firstly, I'm pretty new at making interiors. I just re-did the "my first vault" tutorial. But I just have a quick question about navmeshing- how precise does it have to be? For example, part of my cell uses those sewer pieces with the small, shallow depression going down the middle. Do I have to be perfectly precise, or can I just navmesh over it at the same level as the rest of the navmeshing?

Also, just another random question: I put a jukebox in my cell. How do I choose what radio station it plays?

Thanks in advance.

NavMesh: For those sewer pieces, you could probably get away with NavMeshing them at the same level across the depressions. I'd check out a Beth NavMesh'd cell with those though, just in case. If the triangles are slightly above or under a surface, generally things work out all right from what I've seen though.

Jukebox: JukeBoxDirty01 seems to be the one most often used and is the only jukebox with a station assigned to it, namely GNR. If you wanted a different station, you could make a new one with different RNAM - Radio station info.

Okay, I made the navmesh, and when I went to save an error message came up that said something along the lines of "navmesh in cell *my cell's name* has errors." and it wouldn't let me save... any idea what could be wrong?

EDIT: Wait, it did let me save. It still gave me that message, though. Should I be worried or should I ignore it for now? Also, does it matter if small parts of the navmesh is slightly under the ground?

It means that you have an overlapping section where two triangles overlap (even a little). The best way to find those is to open your cell, go into Navmesh mode and then press "w" several times until only the Navmesh is shown. Then inspect the navmesh to find the overlap, you will notice the color of the overalpped triangle is a darker red (they make it easy to find).

There are two very good tutorials by Bethesda on YouTtube in the first/top section of This post, I recommend starting with these. Here are some of the highlights of Navmeshing

1. Use the "W" key to quickly switch between NavMesh viewing modes, this is very important as you will see.

2. Use the "B" key outside to show the cell boundaries, which is critical for Navmeshing the cell boundaries correctly in exterior cells.

3. Try to make as large of triangles as you can, but in general (as Echonite points out), don't try to get elaborate as the GECK is going to re-write it when your done. Your key goal with NavMeshing should be to cover the areas where NPCs can go.

4. Do not make too-extreme of angles with the triangles, or the GECK will whine about it.

5. You cannot have more than 2,000 Navmeshes in any cell. More than this, and the GECK will error-out. Furthermore, Joystick Monkey says any more than 2,000 is bad for frame rate.

6. The cell boarders in exterior cells are Tricky. What you have to do is Navmesh each side of the boarder and line-up the edges as closely as possible. Each exterior cell has its Own mesh, and they don't physically connect to boardering cells. If you get the meshes at the boarders close-enough, a fat green line will appear at the boarder when you Finalize (see below step 9).

7. The "Tab" key is Huge. You will see this in the tutorial, it allows you to switch which two vertices from the last triangle that you have selected, so you can quickly "walk" your mesh across.

8. The "Test Cell Navmesh" is fabulous, you click it, then click a To and From spot on your mesh (click triangles), and the GECK will draw a fat line across the mesh where it Would send the NPC if it was trying to get from A to B. Its very effective in letting you know where the game would send your NPCs in specific game settings.

9. This takes time to do right, and I strongly recommend the tutorials from Bethesda. I started with them, and thanks to the short-cuts and methods they use I have since Meshed about 12,000-15,000 triangles. Their techniques and short-cuts REALLY make a big difference.

10. When your done with your mesh, do the following:

a. Save.
b. Click the, "Balance for Optimization" button. This will re-write the mesh in a more efficient form and you'll notice the number of triangles drops.
c. Check the mesh, as sometimes Balance can remove triangles if the space is too-narrow for NPCs or too angled. Fix any missing spots as necessary.
d. Click the, "Find Cover Edges" button, which finds the good corners that NPC's can use for cover while in combat.
e. Click the, "Finalize Cell Navmeshes" button, which will finish things up. If you have any errors, they will show up here.
f. Save Again.

Cheers,

Miax